"Like other online platforms, Roblox has had its problems with minors being harmed in ways ranging from cyberbullying to sexual exploitation. The number of serious cases is very limited, especially when you consider that it has more than 80 million active users. With any population of that size, whether physical or virtual, there will be some horrible situations, even if the vast majority of people never experience a major problem."
"Children often lie to get access to a service or features restricted for older teens or adults. There are various signals that systems use to try to weed out those who lie, but none are all that effective. I've seen reliable estimates about millions of young people getting into services or access to age-gated experiences by lying about their age."
"Although there have always been ways to determine or at least estimate the age of people online, most companies have been reluctant to adopt them. In 2009, I was a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, which spent a year studying age verification and concluded that, while practical to determine if someone is an adult, it was not practical to estimate the age of children for a variety of technical, legal and ethical reasons."
Roblox will employ facial age estimation technology and government ID verification to estimate the age of all users. Minors on the platform have faced harms ranging from cyberbullying to sexual exploitation, though serious cases are limited relative to more than 80 million active users. Knowing user age enables delivery of age-appropriate experiences or blocking access when a service is unsuitable. Self-reported birthdates function as an honor system and allow many children to obtain age-gated access by lying. Previous assessments found adult verification practical but estimating the ages of children impractical for technical, legal, and ethical reasons. Recent advances have made such technologies more practical by 2025.
Read at The Mercury News
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